2 Independent Karnataka MLAs seek to withdraw Supreme Court plea for 'forthwith' floor test
New Delhi: Two Karnataka Independent MLAs on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow them to withdraw their plea seeking its direction to the state assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to conduct "forthwith" floor test on a trust motion moved by the H D Kumaraswamy government.
The Congress-JD(S) coalition government on Tuesday lost the trust vote after a three-week-long power struggle.
The counsel for the lawmakers R Shankar and and H Nagesh told a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose that the MLAs wanted to withdraw the petition as the floor test has been conducted in the Karnataka Assembly.
"Where is Mukul Rohatgi (counsel for the lawmakers)? Where is A M Singhvi (counsel for the Speaker)?" the bench said.
It said it will pass the order only in the presence of the senior counsel.
On Tuesday, Speaker Kumar had told the court that voting on the trust motion was likely to be concluded by the evening. During voting that evening, the confidence motion moved by Kumaraswamy was defeated with 99 members voting for the motion and 105 against it a House with an effective strength of 205 members.
Twenty members, including the two Independent MLAs, skipped the proceedings.
The Independent MLAs had moved the apex court, saying the state has plunged into a political crisis after they withdrew their support to the JD(S)-Congress government and 16 lawmakers of the ruling coalition tendered their resignations.
"It is submitted that the trust vote is not being conducted despite the government being in minority. It is submitted that a minority government, which does not have the confidence of the majority, is being allowed to continue in office," they said in their plea to the court.
"The petitioners have been constrained to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India seeking a direction from this court to conduct a floor test forthwith in the Karnataka Assembly," they added.
The legislators had accused the government of taking advantage of the logjam and taking several executive decisions like transferring of police officers, IAS officers, other officials.
Their petition was filed after Kumaraswamy and Karnataka state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao had moved the top court, accusing Governor Vajubhai Vala of interfering with assembly proceedings during the debate on trust vote.
Kumaraswamy and Rao had also sought a clarification of the July 17 order of the apex court by which the 15 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs were granted relief that they cannot be compelled to participate in the assembly proceedings.
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Bengaluru: Two booked for disabling 240 CCTV cameras at Chinnaswamy Stadium
Bengaluru (PTI): An FIR has been registered against two persons for allegedly tampering with the CCTV surveillance system at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on the day of the RCB versus GT IPL match on April 24, police said on Monday.
The accused, identified as Manjunath (37) and Abdul Kalam (19), allegedly entered the stadium without valid authorisation, reportedly by misusing a deactivated access card, and tampered with critical surveillance infrastructure, they said.
The complaint was lodged by Aditya Bhat of Staqu Technologies Pvt Ltd, which provides AI-driven surveillance support during match days, police said.
According to the FIR, more than 240 cameras went offline on the morning of the match.
The two, said to be associated with subcontractor IVS Digital Solutions, allegedly damaged Network Video Recorder (NVR) systems and optical fibre connections, disrupting surveillance coverage in key security zones, including entry gates and perimeter areas.
The accused allegedly entered the CCTV room without proper access and later moved to a junction box near the parking area, where fibre connections were damaged, the FIR stated.
The alleged sabotage affected the availability of surveillance feeds required by police personnel deployed for match security, it added.
A senior police officer said that on the morning of April 24, at around 11.30 am, the two employees, working under a sub-vendor providing digital services during match days, carried out the act.
According to him, the accused duo damaged CCTV fibre connections and a video recorder. The issue was detected and rectified within an hour.
Preliminary investigation suggests that the two employees may have had a personal grudge against the company, possibly related to pending payments, which may have led them to commit the act, he said.
“Both accused have been identified, and further action will be taken soon. All CCTVs were restored within an hour, and the disruption did not impact match proceedings,” he added.
